Will that college degree pay off? You can see the numbers | Hacker News Reader

Will that college degree pay off? You can see the numbers

hechingerreport.org

42 pointsinsightcheck51 comments

Colleges and universities as institutions were never meant for commoners. Most people forget that barely a few centuries colleges and universities were places that primarily catered to two distinct classes of people: first, sons/daughters of rich aristocracies who had plenty of time in their leisure to pursue intellectual ideas; and second, were the clergy where it was considered a pre-requisite for the job.

Colleges and universities were never meant to be a way to riches and fortunes. If interested a degree is worth pursuing just for knowledge's sake regardless of the material benefits it may bestow upon the owner at some later point in their life. Hence I find the "college is so expensive" argument to be quite disingenious honestly. What exactly were you expecting may I ask?

Also, for people who want to learn something as a way to earn a living - may I humbly suggest vocational training instead?

Really? You wouldn't prefer that it was all free any everyone got access to it?

I think it would be great to offer all these programs, for free, paid for by taxes.

Why should taxes subsidize the study of topics that have no economic value?

Most "college should be free" proposals fail under scrutiny because degrees tend to fall into a spectrum of utility:

On one end are degrees that impart skills that are needed and desired by the economy. By and large, graduates of these degrees _already_ enjoy sustainable wages, because the market recognizes and rewards those skills. Government subsidy for these degrees tend to have marginal benefits, because it is already a sound financial choice for students.

On the other extreme are degrees that, like GP identified, were never meant to be economically sound. They focus on intellectual ideas and curiosities, rather than skills actively needed by the economy. Government subsidy here would be little more than subsidizing hobbies and other activity that do not provide economic returns.

There _are_ specific degrees where there's a public policy interest in encouraging the study of topics not adequately compensated by market forces. Most of these are already covered by specific subsidies, such as scientific research grants.

Because economic value is not the end all and be all of life. Have you considered social and cultural benefits?

Social and cultural benefits are entirely subjective and difficult to see how any large group of people would agree on what constitutes such benefits. I don’t think many people would be okay with subsiding the supposed benefits that theologists percisely because they disagree about the benefits. Economic benefits are much more likely to be widely accepted and understood.

Because if they don't have to pay for it, theyll do it because it's what interests them and we will get more interacademic crossover ideas. Which is where innovation thrives! As it stands, people who persue their dreams are forced to go into debt which is, I assume, a shitty thing to have to do and probably doesn't promote creative problem solving (beyond how to get a higher paying job to pay off the debt).

Also, because an eclectically educated mix of people is likely more pleasant to live amongst than an uneducated group. And since it would benefit everyone to have everyone educated it should be paid for with taxes.

Plus it's simply good to leave the world better than you came into it.

Four years of on-campus private school education is a consumption good and I’m not paying for it with my taxes. Nobody who commutes to state school is graduating with six figures of life-destroying debt, and the educational quality is the same or better. Don’t fall for the shiny brochures. A decent, cheap higher education can be had if you aren’t in it for the parties.

For example, in the most populous US state, California, there's a CSU within commuting distance of probably 95% of the population, had for $6k/year, such that student loans at 4% mean a cost of $960/year interest. If you were truly financially savvy (and not having the rest of your countrymen paying for your dorm fraternity experience), the first two years would be community college, at a cost of $2k/year and an interest cost of $640/year.

But maybe I'm biased since I paid for my 3 years community college and 2 years of UC by choosing Computer Science and paying for the $30k with my first year's salary. All of my peers had that option.

Is that what you wanted to study? Or did you do it because you had to, just to be able to pay for it?

You're OK with public school being paid for by tax, but not post secondary. Why?

> You’re OK with public school being paid for by tax

I’m not. Show me a child at a public school who wouldn’t be better educated by a private school for the same price.

Oh, I don't know where to START with this one.

I think people hear "private" and they think "better". Which in some cases, sure. But when you hear "private" you should think "FOR PROFIT". And we all know the way to maximize profit is by maximizing spending and minimizing revenue, right?

I am blessed that public schools in my area are EXTREMELY good. To compete, private schools have to have smaller class sizes and charge a LOT more then a comparative public education costs. If you drop all students in the public system into a private system, to have things COST the same to parents, you'd have to ramp up class sizes or cut what you are providing. Plus, you have to run a profit, so more incentives to skimp.

I think in a lot of areas, due to chronic underfunding, the public school system is bad. But the way to fix this is adequate funding, not the notion that private schools are magic and that the same funding level will lead to similar outcomes.

Show me the data.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/economy/2018/02/08/geog...

Poor funding seems to be strangely well correlated with poor educational outcomes in public education. And well funded systems seem to produce good results.

I can show you one counter-example, which should work.

Hunter College High School in New York City is a public school, and its students disproportionately end up in top US universities (from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter_College_High_School).

The graduates of the private high school near the neighborhood I grew up in, however, mostly ended up as accountants after attending a local public university. For specifics, you can take most private high schools in the US (even many of the very expensive ones), and they won't have as good outcomes recorded for their students as Hunter or its equivalent public schools in New York City.

It's both. I had a variety of things I wanted to study: philosophy, economics, history, and computers. I took electives where I could and majored in CS so I could pursue the rest in my leisure time. The alternative had worse odds of letting me study the others in my leisure time.

You're OK with post secondary being paid for by tax, but not PhD's, why? Why not two PhD's?

I am ok with the basic critical thinking skills useful in navigating life being taught. I believe public school is designed that way and accomplishes that much better than post secondary. I've seen the general psychology, business admin, arts, sociology, and criminology cohort that public universities pump out in the last 5 years. They aren't swimming in unique insights and most worthy of the substantial financial investments we could make elsewhere.

I would have 0 respect for someone that wants a free 4 year ride to study sociology in a pampered university setting, while opposing critical financial aid to the impoverished Ukrainians dying to defend their country.

I'm curious to hear why you are ok with elementary through to high schools being paid for with tax?

> "On the other extreme are degrees that, like GP identified, were never meant to be economically sound. They focus on intellectual ideas and curiosities, rather than skills actively needed by the economy. Government subsidy here would be little more than subsidizing hobbies and other activity that do not provide economic returns."

The risk of defunding these programs is that you can't confidently say whether many of these subjects might become useful in the future.

Many research areas in linguistics, for example, may not have direct economic benefits right now, but could be useful far in the future if humans have alien contact (like the film "The Arrival"). Less speculatively and outside of science fiction, many pure math discoveries have ended up as useful in cryptography and computer science. Astronomy and astrophysics could yield commercial applications far into the future, along with other fundamental scientific research.

Outside of science and more into the arts, history has been influential in recent times to the decision-making of various political leaders. Social science research can be important for the welfare of a country, in the creation of effective evidence-based policy. The support of artists and writers can improve the political influence of a country, when influential works spread to other countries. Focusing on economic returns right now is too narrowly focused on the short term, and ignores the longer-term benefits for a country.

>>> Really? You wouldn't prefer that it was all free any everyone got access to it?

>> "On the other extreme are degrees that, like GP identified, were never meant to be economically sound. They focus on intellectual ideas and curiosities, rather than skills actively needed by the economy. Government subsidy here would be little more than subsidizing hobbies and other activity that do not provide economic returns."

>The risk of defunding these programs is that you can't confidently say whether many of these subjects might become useful in the future.

Why do the options have to be either "free college for all" or "defund programs that don't have direct economic benefits"? The option that you're missing is not giving free college for all, but still providing some merit based scholarships to subsidize the most promising students.

That's a a valid option, but my response was to GP's phrase that "Government subsidy here would be little more than subsidizing hobbies and other activity that do not provide economic returns," which effectively supports the removal of government funding to humanities programs.

Partial or full funding covers my view that at least some government support should exist for humanities programs. The UK, Canada, and many US state universities effectively already do this, where domestic students pay a relatively affordable sum each year (roughly $10,000 USD annually) with merit and need-based scholarships available.

> I think it would be great to offer all these programs, for free, paid for by taxes.

I’d rather fund economically productive programs with taxpayer money. You could fund a lot more that way.

The stuff that the market doesn't value (e.g sociology) is already free in online lecture series. So, no it would not be great for the taxpayer to pay for the credential/status/signalling/social aspect when the actual value (learning and knowledge) is free already.

> "Colleges and universities were never meant to be a way to riches and fortunes. [...] What exactly were you expecting may I ask?"

I disagree with the assumption that the administrators and many professors at universities intend for undergraduate programs to be primarily for learning, and not for improving job prospects.

Many professors focus on material benefits during the first lecture of the course. There are also numerous career fairs and sometimes internship opportunities with industry, which focus greatly on getting material benefits.

Consider also the marketing for many universities: many advertisements (e.g. on public transit) show enrolment at even research-intensive universities as a way to get into prestigious jobs. Alumni networks are also promoted in marketing (though I'm unsure how effective these really are). In my view, times have changed, and the expectation of material benefit is entirely reasonable and even supported by university officials.

No, that is what I am talking about. As one of the points below have mentioned more succintly- utility of a degree in terms of monetary renumaration is already determined by free market forces. For degrees that are determined as less useful, I find that there is no reason whatsoever to burden the tax payer with a bill so that "so and so" can satisfy his/her intellectual curiosity.

For degrees that are determined as less useful from a market perspective still one could make a case that there is a need to provide funding at graduate i.e. at the PhD level. I would give you that since most PhD students do go on to make significant contributions to scholarly literature therby vastly increasing human understanding and frontiers of knowledge.

But clearly this is not the case at undergraduate level. Sorry but the argument that tax payers should foot a bill just so that someone can satisfy his/her intellectual curiosity does not sound convincing at all.

It's fair that the funding of programs just to let people satisfy intellectual curiosity may not be convincing to many taxpayers.

However, real benefits of government funding can still exist. If we agree that work by PhD students in the humanities can create real benefits for a country, then there can be real benefits to having researchers come from a variety of economic upbringings, not just from wealthy backgrounds.

Many academics do social science research on how to craft better policies to improve the health and economic outcomes of underdeveloped rural parts of a country. They can arguably do more effective research if some of the researchers are from a low-income rural background. To achieve this benefit, a social science undergraduate education would need to be subsidized, so the student is eligible to work at the PhD level.

That benefit isn't large enough to justify the cost. If you're just talking about subsidizing the education of the most promising 5 percent of students from disadvantaged backgrounds, then sure. Otherwise, no.

It's too late to change. The economic damage of pulling back government spending for financial aid would totally destroy many schools and the cities and businesses that have grown up around/downstream of them.

Protecting jobs is not an argument for continuing wasteful spending. The same argument can be deployed to justify agricultural subsidies and many other wasteful practices. The net result is significant harm, even if locally and short-term it is the path of least resistance. It's procrastination at the level of a country.

You're not wrong, but when it comes to political will for change, destroying jobs and opportunity is not a good look. Democracies really cannot effectively avoid handouts to entrenched interests.

> They can arguably do more effective research if some of the researchers are from a low-income rural background.

Surely by now such an argument can be made with data rather than rhetoric? “There can be real benefits to having researchers come from a variety of economic upbringings” is a testable hypothesis. It would be unscientific to advance a funding regime geared towards this absent data.

I couldn't find data from a quick search, though I did find a study where researchers groups with a higher diversity of "ethnicity, age, gender, and affiliation" tended to have higher citation counts. [1]

Still, it's not too out there to say that a researcher who grew up in a low-income family can provide a very useful perspective for designing research for addressing poverty (even at least for designing research questions and better recruiting participants). I concede that the evidence may not reach the bar for large, massive investment, but it could at least be promising for at least some funding as a starting point—at least some needs-based scholarships.

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6701939/

> there is no reason whatsoever to burden the tax payer

Why burden tax payers at all? Just have Universities and Colleges charge the full freight of the degree/diploma to the student. That should work out swimmingly.

The issue with breaking down colleges and universities into "feeder programs" for jobs, is that they are terrible at that. Jobs require specific skills, and institutions are teaching subjects that might cover some of those skills, but not all of them and most importantly not the future ones. What Universities SHOULD be doing, is teaching students how to THINK about their intended subject. Consider different areas and approaches, and be able to be creative and innovative. You know, those things that VCs actually prattle on about? There are PLENTY of people that started in another field, and for whatever reason pivoted to tech. (And while we've had some student loan forgiveness recently, it's mostly the students that foot the bill for their education -- and the most expensive parts of the system are for-profit colleges which are supposed to be the "most" market responsive).

Lastly, the "market" is not all knowing and all seeing, and at times it's pretty fickle. Early on there was no "market" for something like the Internet, but it's proved pretty useful. Started as a wasteful to taxpayers pie in the sky project, too.

So only subjects that are profitable for employers should be funded? And PhDs should be funded even when they are not profitable but never undergraduate studies so that only people with enough money can afford to pursue an undergraduate degree? Sounds like an excellent way to give even more power to the already rich. This is the kind of late stage capitalism that makes my skin crawl.

> Also, for people who want to learn something as a way to earn a living - may I humbly suggest vocational training instead?

Tell that to HR/whoever is selling hiring software. It's nearly impossible to get past the resume screening process for many entry level jobs without a college degree. The starkness of the divide between have and have-not is what motivates the push for widespread college education.

> Colleges and universities as institutions were never meant for commoners. Most people forget that barely a few centuries colleges and universities were places that primarily catered to two distinct classes of people

Fine, but that all changed no later than the Morrill Act of 1862 [1], which called on every state in the US to create a public agriculture and engineering university (and provided a method for funding the creation).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morrill_Land-Grant_Acts

> A bachelor’s degree in anthropology from Ithaca College costs $132,656, on average, and two years later, graduates are earning $19,227. That’s less than people in New York State earn with only a high school diploma and no college education.

That's just one example, but in general I complement the article on emphasizing approaches using current, not longer-term historic data.

One can overfit to a current bad economy, etc, but it seems insincere to promote college based upon 30-year past data, without acknowledging secular shifts in conditions.

The second line tells me there’s something else going on here:

> That’s less than people in New York State earn with only a high school diploma and no college education.

This tells me that the act of getting a degree in anthropology is correlated not with wanting to be an anthropologist but with either (or maybe both) blindly equating any degree with a better life, or a behavioral pattern of doing anything and everything to avoid getting shit done for as long as humanly possible. That a bullshit degree is not failing at life in its own right, but a sign that you already have been and will continue to do so.

We all knew That Guy in college. Maybe it’s just more widespread than that.

Interesting twist.

> people in New York State earn

I assumed this was referring to age cohorts (assuming the statement is true in at least some sense).

This sort of analysis fails because you're not the average person.

Many people here on HN could have taken a degree in Egyptology and then landed a solid job in software because in their spare time they muck about with computers.

I'm also sure that a lot of people here know many CS graduates who struggle to find work because they're just... not good software developers or can't market themselves.

The only person I know who majored in Egyptology is now a pediatric oncologist making probably half a mill a year in Manhattan. I agree — it’s about the person, not the major.

Ya but wouldn't that be because in medicine, the initial degree is sort of arbitrary as long as you place very highly and cover some core subjects?

Sure.

The point is more that a person's choice of degree is _correlated_ to earnings, jobs, etc, but the job they take is causatively related.

If you want to work on botany you might study botany and work as a botanist. It's not the degree that means you end up with a botanist's salary - it's the fact that you wanted to be a botanist!

> If you want to work on botany you might study botany and work as a botanist. It's not the degree that means you end up with a botanist's salary - it's the fact that you wanted to be a botanist!

I suppose that's part of the nature of analyzing the numbers though isn't it? How likely it is, even with a botany degree and a goal to be a botanist, that you actually do become a botanist, and the salary outcome is one way to normalize different pathways and outcomes.

For example, if the normalized salary range of people who studied botany ended up in the $300k range, it might mean that it was more likely that people who initially wanted to get into botany ended up instead becoming physicians, and then you could poke into the why of that and see if there's actually some other signal that stronger for people who actually get into professional botany, like having dabbled in weed growing and having connections in that industry

For most of the 1900s, the income tax rate for the top tax bracket was from 70-90%. Take a look: https://spcfo.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Historical-Tax-...

In 1980, Ronald Reagan was elected and the top tax bracket dropped precipitously and has been that way ever since. Prior to this, the universities, and almost everything else, was a lot less expensive.

Look what happened since 1980s when the top tax bracket was reduced: https://external-preview.redd.it/Fipe2yOlU1zHjIdNU9kJLI1idBX...

The rich started getting richer in the 1980s and continues through today. Pretty damn obvious.

If we want to MAGA back to the 1950s, first thing we should do is raise the top tax bracket to 80%. This includes when the uber-wealthy use stock as collateral for purchases - they turned their collateral into income. Jeff Bezos bought a house for $150 million. He used stock as collateral, because his salary at Amazon was $80,000, not because he was egalitarian, but he only paid taxes on $80,000. Therefore at the 1950's top income tax rate, Bezos would pay $600,000,000 in income taxes in order to gain the $150,000,000 to buy the home.

You say this would cause capital to fly overseas? No way, bullshlit. If they did that, we do what the USA has done to other countries and other people, especially during the Ukraine war - they freeze assets of individual people.

Bezos made the money in the USA, using roads, banks, buildings, and everything else, then he does not get to just twirl away into another country and take his marbles.

MAGA - go back to 80% tax for the wealthy. We did it then, we can do it now.

Are they taking into account graduate school? Something like 2/3 of anthropology majors go to to graduate school after getting their bachelor’s degree for example. If you just look at how much they are making two years after getting their bachelor’s degree the average is going to be pulled way down by those unless they are excluded.

> Students who are unemployed two years after earning their degrees, including any who are in graduate or professional school, aren’t counted.

So they’re getting underemployed dropouts of those fields? Doesn’t seem very representative

Numbers don’t tell the full tale. Yes an anthropology degree for the sake of having a degree is going to cost you, especially if you don’t go to a cheaper school to get it.

Almost nobody is going to hire you in some fields without a degree, and if that’s the field you want, then a degree you will get.

If your dream is to be the next Steve Irwin, then it doesn’t really matter if that degree in marine biology takes seven years to pay off or the rest of your life. You’re doing what you love with people you respect, which you aren’t going to find selling movie tickets or even managing the theater.

Edit: I think it might be good if we tried to discourage people without means from pursuing degrees with little to no vocational value. Those programs and the loans attendant to them are somewhat predatory in nature.

There seems to be a bit of narrative about "not burdening taxpayers" for a few years while students are in school.

I have to ask, what happens once they finish school? Do they not join the legion of taxpayers? Is it only CURRENT taxpayers that have a say in this, and not say all voters?

I do think there is a lot of upside in letting people pick what and where to study. It's a collective investment in our future generation.

> Do they not join the legion of taxpayers?

If they're only making $20k per year, no, not really.

Oh? It seems one becomes a taxpayer at about $12k or so. It seems that someone at $20k is well over that.

Do people on the low end of the tax scale not deserve to be educated?

Just here to point out the time i was downvoted by a bunch of tech bros for saying i was homeless while employed in the area i went to school for (which was the truth at the time; fortunately managed to get out of that situation, but have resented HN ever since).

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